origin fromness

In the early forms of my gift-ontology, I had “origin-fromness” as the concrete “from” that constitutes personal distinction. It is not a spatial relation, not a temporal sequence, and not a causal chain of events. It is personal provenance within the one divine life. Origin-fromness is what is meant by “relation” in the Trinitarian case when relation is said to be subsistent: relation is origin-fromness as personal subsistence. Origin-fromness is also how monarchy is preserved. The Father is origin-fromness without being-from; the Son is origin-fromness as being-from the Father; the Spirit is origin-fromness as proceeding from the Father, with the Son’s involvement stated in a way that does not introduce a second arche. This term was intended to be an anti-reduction device because it makes “relation” concrete and hypostatic rather than schematic.

But, with that said, this was in my earlier stages of developing this gift-ontology, I used the term origin-fromness because I was trying to make one point with unusual force: in the Trinity, relation is not a thin schematic link, not a merely logical comparison, and not an accidental feature laid over a deeper substrate. With the above I wanted to say that relation, in the divine case, is concrete, personal, and constitutive. The term was meant to stress that personal distinction lies in the irreducible order of who is from whom, not in parts, properties, psychological profiles, or separable features. In that respect, the instinct behind the term remains sound. What it was trying to protect was the concreteness of Trinitarian relation, the non-partitive character of distinction, and the fact that the divine persons are irreducibly identified by origin.

But, now that my language has matured, and this AI research project had gotten pretty deep, I think, what is meant here should be stated in the classical and more publicly intelligible term of relation of origin. This more proper phrase says more exactly, and more recognizably within Catholic theology, what I was reaching for by origin-fromness. In the Trinity, personal distinction is constituted by relation of origin. This relation is not spatial, not temporal, and not a causal chain of events. It is the eternal and subsisting order of personal provenance within the one simple divine life. The Father is from no one, the unoriginate principle; the Son is eternally from the Father by generation; and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son, according to the Latin confession, while preserving the monarchy of the Father and the unity of principle. So, the insight that remains is this: relation, in the Trinitarian case, is not an abstract structure but a concrete subsisting relation of origin. That is what preserves real personal distinction without composition, keeps monarchy intact, and prevents “relation” from collapsing into something merely schematic or conceptual.